Ice Cream Market Trends

During last year’s pandemic, ice cream unexpectedly became a dark horse in the food industry.

Recently, the “Online Ice Cream Consumption Trend Report” jointly released by Tmall’s official new product platform Tmall Xiaoheibox and Alimama showed that in 2020, the ice cream category on the Tmall platform has achieved full category growth, and compared with 2019, the sales volume has nearly doubled, and the core is driven by new products.

As the world’s largest ice cream consumer market, how much room is there for innovation in China’s ice cream industry? Today I will share with you a few trends in ice cream!
 

Hawana Sweetheart、Mr. Banana、Glutinous Rice ice cream

1. Back to Childhood

Ten years ago, a banana-shaped ice cream swept the streets. Mr. Banana with a pair of black sunglasses on the package was avant-garde. It will never be absent from street shops, becoming an unforgettable childhood memory for young people in East and South China. Ten years later, Nestle came back with an upgrade with Mr. Banana, causing countless netizens to discuss “Ye Qing Hui”.

In addition to the return of Mr. Banana, we found that this summer, Nestlé ice cream, which has created many childhood memories and classic products for consumers, is constantly changing our cognition and impression, and has begun to update and iterate ice cream categories with the thinking of new consumer brand. Not only customized new products for different groups of people, but also comprehensively upgraded the brand image.

Milk Ice Cream (Longjing Green Tea Flavor)

2. New taste: Multi-Flavor
Combination, Richer Taste,
Healthy Flavor

Taste innovation is the most common in the food industry, and it is also a “quick effect” innovation method. It is easy to get good reviews by grasping consumers’ taste needs. Although exotic flavors are a way of flavor innovation, this path is obviously narrowed. Which flavors have potential?

According to the “Online Ice Consumption Trend Report”, the white peach fruit flavor in the online ice cream market has increased by 462% compared with last year; the milk tea flavor has increased by 125% compared with last year; the traditional tea flavors such as green tea, oolong tea and Longjing have also increased significantly.

Not long ago, Bright Ube Fresh Milk Ice Cream launched a new Longjing tea flavor. In the fresh milk ice cream without adding a drop of water, Hangzhou Longjing tea powder is added. The tea powder is made using Japanese low-temperature grinding technology, which preserves the unique aroma of Longjing to the greatest extent.

Longstanding Japanese ice cream brands such as Meiji and Morinaga have long been familiar with Longjing, but Japanese national-level smoothie label “Fordba” is bringing it forward as a new discovery. As early as 1951, “Ford Bar” became the only ice cream factory that obtained a production license in Tochigi Province, Japan. While it looks like a plain fruit popsicle, with no interesting additions, after just one bite, you can understand – it’s a juice popsicle, but the taste is as delicate and dense as ice cream, even a little airy, without ice ballast. Say it is like ice cream, because it contains a lot of juice, and it is not as thick as cream-based ice cream. Looking at the ingredient list, the juice content of each fruit popsicle can reach 10%. In the market where the juice is added more than 2.5%, you can call yourself fruit ice cream/popsicle. Popsicles with such a high content of juice are undoubtedly delicious.

FUTABA Ice Cream
(Grape, Apple, Peach Flavor)

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